


The Little-Known Pleasures of Cross-Referencing

by linman



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Genre: Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-02-03
Updated: 2010-02-03
Packaged: 2017-10-07 00:06:51
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,963
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/59202
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/linman/pseuds/linman
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Giles takes up his pen.  Set in the summer following season three.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Little-Known Pleasures of Cross-Referencing

**Author's Note:**

> Acknowledgments: [](http://hedda62.livejournal.com/profile)[**hedda62**](http://hedda62.livejournal.com/) and [](http://fuzzyboo03.livejournal.com/profile)[**fuzzyboo03**](http://fuzzyboo03.livejournal.com/) for mightyquick mightygood beta.

Giles had a summer project ready-made: sorting the books they'd removed from the library, which involved a) unpacking them b) determining if they were part of the occult library c) determining, further, if they were high-priority enough for limited shelf space and d) reboxing for storage all the ones that didn't make the cut.

Xander had promised to help him, but he had hared off on a sightseeing trip and hadn't said when he'd be back. Despite the initial pang of pique, Giles did not mind this, as Xander had been getting that protective look again. Giles had had quite enough of being looked after in the summer months, and although he had a) blown up his job, b) been cut off from his heritage, and c) encouraged the remaining reason for him to remain in America to go get her university degree, Giles had in fact come off this apocalypse not much the worse.

And so it was that this evening found him quite alone in his flat, with the small nest of boxes he had lugged over from the storage unit and several hot paper boxes of Chinese food waiting on the table.

With his feet propped on one of the book boxes, Giles ate his Chinese food and sipped at the glass of red wine he'd poured, then got up to kick off his shoes, roll up his sleeves, and find the box cutter.

It was second nature to note the titles on his clipboard as he unearthed them, and soon his table was as high-stacked with books as the pages of his list were friable with flipping. Three boxes in, however, Giles found that he was growing tired. He pulled one more book out of the box, set it wearily on the table, and leaned back in his chair, pushing his fingers up under his glasses and rubbing hard at his eyes.

There were lots more books where these came from. Giles felt exhausted just thinking about them. He dropped his hands from his face and rested his gaze on the cover of the last book for a long minute; and then he realized, idly, what he was looking at.

This was one of the books he had stashed away from Willow's curious eyes, not that that had stopped her, apparently, and probably he ought to be worried about that. If only Willow had somebody to mentor her properly; somebody other than a washed-up Watcher with a once-bitten-twice-shy aversion to magic; somebody like --

She was like a sudden radio silence in his mind and heart: he felt nothing at reminders of Jenny's death, could think nothing about her murder that wasn't too self-evident even to articulate. This was not in itself evidence that he had loved her, but it was enough different from anything one was told to expect a year after the fact that he knew it was significant.

It was not silence, however, that was calling to him. The restless rising of his blood had passed unnoticed until the outer silence of his flat had shown it up by contrast, and now Giles found himself staring at the spellbook more intently. There was a spell in this book he had long known about, though he had never performed it: it was tame compared with the shit he and Ethan had got up to, and he had never dared to behave much more than conventionally with lovers since. No, it was a spell that required a certain state of mind, and he had never been nearer that state of mind than he was right now: he was alone, and he was ready to cast aside convention with the balance of a cat on a fence.

Giles glanced around the empty flat. Why not? Even on the Hellmouth there was nothing particularly reckless about the spell, and anyway his job (official or not) had been to provide the reck: and he was rather tired of it, if he wanted to be truthful.

He didn't particularly want to be truthful, but he did want to do the spell: suddenly he wanted it very much.

Methodically Giles cleared the checked-off books from the table and piled them around the TV, to get them out of the way. He went upstairs to the loft and removed his jeans and jumper, T-shirt and boxers, then tucked a soft linen towel around his waist and belted his robe around him. Downstairs he filled a glass bowl with water and set it on the empty table, at his customary place. Beside it he set a glass bottle of ink and a wide-nibbed pen, then found a pair of clean dishcloths and laid them on the other side. In the center, like a blank placemat, he laid a fresh leaf of parchment paper, the sort used by amateur calligraphers in an idle mood -- which was more or less what he was at this moment.

He turned off the kitchen lights, lit a candle at his place, and sat down with the spellbook at last. Gently he wiped the thick pages forward till he reached the one he wanted, and set the book open above the parchment.

The spell was a single page, because the primary action was one of automatic writing; but there was an incantation, in an ancient language Giles had learned in the Watcher's Academy, though certainly not for purposes such as this. Giles mulled the words over his tongue, preparing for the moment he would speak them: and already the tingling feel of his own sorcery was radiating from him, as how one notices a change in the taste in one's own mouth.

He centered his body comfortably on his chair, feet on the floor, wrists resting on the table. He drew a long breath and let the will toward magic bear him up; then, deliberately, reached over and picked up his pen.

In accordance with the instructions, he took up some ink in the nib and set the pen to the paper, to make one, broad, strong, scything line: a yang line. A right-handed person would have been inclined to carry his first line from left to right, from past to future, but Giles was not right-handed, and this line was drawn to gather in all the selves he had been. His skin prickled with the power of it, and as he lifted the pen he felt the yang principle stir in his flesh. His eyes narrowed cat-like with the beginnings of pleasure.

The next act was to draw the yin line: a line that curved sinuously around the yang line and began to fill the page. His breath rose as again he took up ink and set nib to paper, and it was a testimony to the growing strength of the magic that his line was more beautiful and graceful than he would ever have drawn under normal circumstances.

Now. There had been no illustration for the first two lines, but there was for the sigil he would draw in the surface of the water. Gently he laid down the pen and reached for the bowl of water. He drew the sigil with his finger, once: north. Gave the bowl a quarter turn and drew it again: east. Another quarter turn: south. And once again: west. Then he dipped all five fingertips in the water and drew them up into a gentle fist.

Now the words. He spoke them, quiet and strong, and in the same act flicked his wet fingers over the paper.

At once the yang and yin lines grew fluid, and more than fluid: alive. Elated, Giles reached, with preternaturally steady fingers, to take up the pen once more.

Fresh ink, black, shining in the candlelight. The candlelight itself, casting radiance over the living lines on the paper. Giles set the nib to the paper, and began to draw.

His first line was a long, light caress; and he had found success, for the caress was mirrored along his back. He was tempted to close his eyes, but kept them open: this was the way to raise his blood, not merely surrender but surrender with will.

Without lifting the pen he changed the line, and the caress on his skin changed accordingly; the line, meanwhile, took on its own life and joined the yang and yin in its sinuous dance.

The line stroked his thighs, first the outsides, then, as he moved them acquiescently, the insides. Then, mockingly, the line darted away to a feather-light touch on his calf, down to the upper of his right foot.

Giles moved his pen over the paper. The mocking touch traced upward again, from the division of his buttocks, upward in the runnel of his spine, to the nape of his neck: and heat sprang alive between his thighs. The long stroke continued up the curve of his skull, and Giles drew a strong line with the pen that called the pen of his body erect and straining hard. Had he been drawing with a partner, he would have invited him or her to stroke the line with the line of their own pen, but it was enough to leave himself waiting and aching while he formed the lines that would draw a firm caress over his sides, the soles of his feet, the hardness of his nipples.

His breath labored from inspiration to exhalation, and took on a faint growl as it passed along his voice. A tremble began in the fibers of all his muscles, need swelling in a slow throb, as he teased his skin with the pen, till the fierce volition of his body seized control, and he drew jagged, thrusting lines, breathing fast, watching the points turn to rocking waves in the wake of his nib and dindle the edges of the page with their power.

Are you ready now? he asked himself with the pen. Are you ready now? Now? now?

Oh, _now_.

Now: now: headlong insistence pressed all the way into complete surrender, and the lines took over to caress his genitals directly at last, drawing, drawing, pulling like a tide, until --

The tide reached its full and he breathed out a long voiced breath, releasing, releasing, releasing.

In the gentle throb of the afterglow, the candlelight illuminated his still-moving hand as it drew long caressing strokes that bathed his whole body, until the tremble of the passing cataclysm evened to a whisper of drying, divided nib against parchment.

Giles lifted the pen from the paper. The living lines died down and became still, drying ink, a meaningless tangle upon the page. He laid aside the pen and took up the page to feed into the candle bit by bit. When the last ash trickled into the candle-bowl, the spell ended, finished.

He looked around. The bright sharpness of magic still shouted its silent clarity in the flat, but even this was beginning to fade. Quietly, Giles got up and went into the bathroom to wash, then returned to the table to clear away the place setting.

Night had fallen, and with a sense of completeness -- as if the yang line drawn back to his past had said all that needed to be said -- Giles took the day's dishes into the kitchen and did the washing up. As he had anticipated, his body was both fully satisfied and awake with the promise of more hunger. To his relief, however, the restlessness had not taken over his magical will as well; and he had no intention of pressing his luck.

With a faint smile Giles hung up the dishtowel, put out all the lights, and went up the stairs to bed.

"I really," he said thoughtfully as he buttoned his pajamas, "need to get laid."


End file.
